


Cough Up My Lungs

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:01:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Laura drowned in ice cream and books, Carmilla drowned in something far worse: the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cough Up My Lungs

_So I take off my face 'cuz it reminds me how it all went wrong, and I pull out my tongue 'cuz it reminds me how it all went wrong…_

\--

You don't have a plan once you're out of her line of sight. You just need to get out of her eyes, out of earshot, away from her smell because you're afraid you might forgive her and equally terrified that you won't. So you're out in the cold and in the sun and it's burning you both in different ways and you start walking because you refuse to run, you refuse to grant her that. You will not run from her.

So you walk in the snow until it shifts over to rain and turns the ground to ice beneath your feet. You slip. You're on the ground. Some kid walking past you is laughing at. You wish something had broken. But that bruise will be gone by morning. Because you're not human. Because you'll never be human again.

The sun is setting, creeping below the horizon so it doesn't have to deal with you. It takes the freezing rain with it and many of the clouds. The moonlight through the clearing sky soothes the ache on your arms and face from hours under the daylight peeking out between rainstorms to laugh at you. Stars come with it and they're _your_ stars, they belong to you and you get sick at the memory of Laura lying beneath you, watching your stars as her eyes fluttered and your name was the only thing she knew.

She's got what's left of that traitor in your chest, the tattered pieces of the soul it betrayed. They're your stars, she can't have them too.

You remember punching the window because the blood in the snow is like a painting and a voice like Laura's tells you it wasn't your blood to bleed. How many people flowed through your veins now?

You know you're inside only because the wind is gone and so is the frost working its way into your clothes, gunning for your skin. You hadn't grabbed a jacket in your despair. 

It's the bar of a frat house and it's closed and they might have an alarm going off but you rip the swinging half-door of its hinges to walk behind the bar over splinters and pull out whatever you could grab. It sloshes against the glass like a song and you walk back out that window you remember punching because that's still someone else's blood on the ground and your hand still hurts.

You're back in the night and the snow and the cold but now you have friends to keep you company. Liquid courage, liquid painkillers, liquid sutures. Whiskey and vodka and another whiskey. The gang's all here. And with _your_ stars above it's a party.

No need to feel alone.

No need to feel friendless.

No need to feel like half of you burned alive.

She is young and this isn't your fault. She is naïve and this isn't your fault. You love her more than she loves you. That might be your fault. She doesn't love you at all actually, also your fault.

But you love your sister too, whose fault is that?

In the distance there's wailing and shuddering and you see the angler fish groaning in the prison you put it in for her and wish you'd stayed dead down there like you were supposed to. _That's how the story goes…good is triumphant…evil is vanquished…_ They mistook you in the clean up for the wrong chess piece and now everyone was paying the price for it.

A flight of stairs. When had you walked inside again? Did you punch a window this time too? It was shocking how out of your body you were without a single drop in your system. Laura's tears were the wrong side of intoxication, the crueler side of venom.

You're back outside again because you're on a roof. Of course you're on a roof. You're always on a fucking roof, closer to the stars, farther from _them_

_"They will hate you,"_ Maman warned you. _"Ours is an existence for which the world shows no pity._ "

Always bruised, never bleeding.

Drink.

Always asleep, never dreaming.

Drink again.

Always alive, never beating.

Drink, drink, drink.

You used up one of your friends. How typical. You toss it and move onto the next.

You're sitting for hours on the room of whatever building you'd terrorized with your centuries of murder and deceit walking through the front door. The moon is bright but most of the stars are stronger, trying to get to you, racing each other to console you.

Or blame you.

Stop crying.

Tears in the snow are worse than blood. They're your own to shed this time. Which is more human, tears or blood?

The second friend is gone and rolling across the roof and can't dawn just show up and burn you alive now? Humans burn themselves when they die, maybe you can trick the universe just this once if you do it too.

_Oh let me rest at long last…_

You begin work on the last of your friends and take pain in knowing you'll never throw up like a human might. If only the Earth could turn faster, a blink of an eye you'd be 400 and everything would be easier.

She is 19.

"What the actual hell?" came a voice, shivering half in cold and half in anger.

You swivel your body because you forget how to move your head. Laf, fiery haired and wrapped in a puffy parka was staring down at you and the empty bottles lulling around you in the wind. There was a lot of anger looking right at you, mixed with exhaustion that was not and sadness you were perhaps not supposed to detect.

"There's still 4 sips left, you want in?" you ask, offering up the bottle casting lights when the light from above hit it.

"Absolutely not," they say.

"Here to push me off the roof? It won't work, I've tried."

They sit down instead, not next to you because now you're sensing fear. As if you'd bury yourself further by eating someone. When was the last time you feed off someone anyway? Calm down Ginger Snap, you're fine.

"I'm here to make sure you haven't skipped town or died," they said.

"Somehow I can never manage to do either," you say, throwing back. 3 sips left, come on Laf, you're missing your chance.

"Yeah maybe that's a good thing."

You snort. You go to throw the bottle back again but a hand catches your ice wrist and holds tightly. You turn slowly to look at them and they look like they might lose their never at any second but the grip doesn't falter.

You lower the bottle, pulling their hand with you until glass hits cement and you both let go. Your fingers cling to night air for the first time in hours.

"Will you come back to the house? Laura has been in tears all night," they say, clearing their throat.

"Yeah because clearly I'm going to be the one to fix that."

"You are the one that caused it."

You feel your brow furrow on impulse. A low blow to guts you don't have. Your mother sold those too for your immorality. It's seeming less and less worth it. You'll take the wounded intestines back if they'll let you breath again. So you can breath like her.

"Sorry," they mumble. "That probably sounded way worse than I meant it."

"No you meant it just as it sounded," you slur. "Don't do discredit to cruelty."

They say nothing, looking down.

"'Farewell happy fields where Joy for ever dwells; hail horrors, hail infernal world'," you mumble. 

"What the hell?"

" _Paradise Lost._ "

"Do you get this dramatic every time you get drunk?"

"Only when I burn Eden."

"For fuck's sake."

They get up and roll their eyes, huffing and pacing, collecting the bottles, gently teetering in the wind, and stack them in the corner along with the one they did not allow you to finish. They stand over you, blocking out moonlight, and cross their arms.

"Can I help you?" you say.

"You can get up and come back," they say.

You stay put. This is home now. This is your roof, your stack of hollow bottles, your moonlight, and those are always your stars. This is you, quiet, and alone in the dark. That house was someone you pretended to be.

The nudge you with the toe of their snow boot. Once, twice, on the third time it's hard and you glare. Any trace of nervousness from before is gone and their staring a hard line into you.

"What else do you people want from me?" you say, stumbling and groaning up to your feet in a pathetic teeter. Fuck you're a vampire, act like it.

"Carmilla we kind of need to be going on all cylinders and that doesn't involve you and Laura doing—this," they say.

"Sorry my heartbreak inconveniences your plans to cause me further pain," you say.

"Further pain?"

"Plotting the demise of the last family I have left? Ring any bells or were you too busy playing Frankenstein?"

You push past them with a shove shoulder to shoulder and take steps to the edge of the roof, hovering just above the trees from the light foresting below. You could disappear into them, run far, far away. You could hold up in some castle, some mountain cave and never speak to another soul again. You could let centuries go by and let Laura and the others turn to dust, let the school crumble and live with only person who has been a constant in your 334 years. 

You stay on the roof though. That timeline fades because if you're going to die, you'll do it here.

"Carmilla," they say, taking a breath. "You know you're supposed to be dead right? You left that pit, it wasn't for nothing."

"Oh don't turn into one of _those_ I thought you were a scientist," you say.

"Carmilla we need you," they say.

"Yeah, yeah, get in line," you say. "Let's recap your tactics so far: guilt me into coming back, then play the universe chose you for a reason card, and now we're just cutting to the we need to pump you for knowledge if need be?"

They frowned.

"When are you bribing me? I might actually go for that one," you say and walk away, back towards the door, accidentally kicking the pile of bottles of in the process. One shattered.

Stop crying.

Stop crying.

Stop crying.

You're back through the door and into the stairwell that took you to hell. 

"Hey," they say, suddenly behind you in the dark.

You'd said it aloud.

"Stop crying," you hiss through gritted teeth and closed eyes, salt down your cheeks.

They say nothing, perhaps out of tact or out of fear at seeing you like this. Or maybe they just want to curry as much favor as possible so they can drag you back to play private eye.

You lean back and let your head thud against the wall. The alcohol is already wearing thin in its grip on your head. The tears are over now because you're back in control, you're a statue again.

Your mother was wrong. It was the flesh that couldn't love stone. How tragic.

"Carmilla, I don't blame you for being upset," they say. "I also don't blame Laura for having questions and doubts. But that's for you two to deal with. I know you love her."

You swallow imaginary bile.

"And she's defenseless right now," they say. "Don't tell her I said that. But she needs your help. Something bad is going to happen. She'll need you."

It was duty then, using your powers for good, saying okay to the universe that kept you alive for almost 400 years….for what? Perhaps you'll find out, though you still think Laf is just spewing nonsense at you to make sure you don't run off to sister dearest. You're little more than a piece in the game. They want to control you.

Wild card.

That house, Laura, all of them, want to name your suit, choose your color, make you the secret weapon of their hand. You've always been a slave. Society, Maman, now Laura. You belong to them. They own the rights and the chains. And worst of all you sold yourself to them willingly. Fuck Mircalla for ruining everything Carmilla wanted. 

"She doesn't love me," you say, swallowing. "Which isn't surprising."

What's surprising is that you tricked yourself into thinking she might. Her perhaps she did on that first night up in the solarium, beneath the sky. Maybe she even tricked herself.

"If you're fishing for me to tell you're wrong, it's not going to happen," they say. "All that is your business. You don't want to help us? Fine. But don't hang around here like a ghost, at least give Laura some peace."

They walk past you down into the dark of the stairwell and vanish from sight and eventually from hearing. _No, please come back. Don't leave me alone..._ It's just you with only the musty smell of the building, alcohol, and dying things in the walls. This was your future when they all died and you kept walking. 

But you will always return to her. 

The pauses you take before taking steps is just to convince yourself you're going back because it's your house and your things and humans won't be kicking you out just because you got defanged. The convincing doesn't work. You'll watch her sleep if you have to. Safe and sound from the things that go bump in the night. Things like you.

You're making that walk again. More snow, more cold. The moon is currently trapped behind a lonely cloud and it's you and Orion above as the ground crunches beneath your boots. You wish you knew how to shiver.

The house does not feel warm when you step inside and stomp snow and mud off your boots in the foyer. That'll give Ginger 2 something to do with herself come morning. The lights are low and it must be closer to sunrise than midnight. Everything is incredibly still but that's only because it's all too heavy to move. You don't need breath to know the air is thick. You take steps in the den and find the computer turned off for once. Your leather vest is thrown over a chair and it's drenched in Laura.

That tugged a bit at your chest.

An old ice cream carton wasn't put away on the table and piles of books are sitting on the floor. _Breaking Dawn_ , _Gone With the Wind_ , _Wuthering Heights_ …

You stand and walk up the stairs, avoiding the one that creeks and stepping onto the landing with deft silence. You're that ghost Laf wanted you to stop being. There are no lights on under any of the doors and you stand outside the room you shared with Laura for minutes on end, memorizing the wood and how it might be frowning.

But then you turn away. You carve out a place for yourself in the servants quarters down the hall, locking the door leading to the solarium on your way because you don't want to remember how happy you'd been.

_I feel like hell._

\----

It's a few days later and you've avoided Laura, avoided being spotted by her, and avoided having to look at her for the most part. Laf found you and gave you thumbs up mixed with the most disapproving look you've ever seen. Which was weird. Perry slips you plates of the cupcakes she made for Laura. Apparently Laf had convinced her to cook one with blood in it, much to her own horror, and you pretend you don't smile.

It's a few days gone when you walk into the den and, of course, find Laura with Danny. How fucking typical. _Oh look, it's my foil, the hero to my dragon, the day to my night, the angel to my devil._ What a fucking shocker.

She's shuffling out of the room fast and you can't help but notice there is no malice in her quick gaze at you, no judging, no triumphant "I told you so", if anything she just looked sad. Well goddammit Lawrence was making it hard for you to get made at her. And Laura didn't even look guilty.

She's pale, and had darkness under brown eyes that were more murky than you've ever seen them. But the room smells like Danny, like Danny had been here for hours and hours. You don't assume she's rebounded, but you do assume she's thinking to herself how grateful she is for Danny in the face of the tragedy of you.

"Hey. You're back," she says. "I wasn't sure you were gonna come back."

"Of course I'm back. This is my mother's apartment and I stole it fair and square," you say, matter-of-factly remembering how you had to be the one to storm out of your own home. You're centuries old, she's still a teenager. 

"That's not what I meant."

She seems exhausted but you're not giving in to her pity party for herself. She doesn't get to be the victim. She's good at playing that card, but you've learned very well how to tell her no (it's what got you here in the first place).

"Oh I know what you meant," hands go to your hips. "But you and your knight in shining gym shorts over there need more space then you can find another room."

The innuendo is not missed but she doesn't get defensive, she doesn't get antsy or angry the ways he did when Danny had accused her of having feelings for you. So you believe her when she says:

"Okay 1, there is nothing going n with me and Danny."

And you know she's telling the truth.

"And 2, all my broadcasting equipment is here so if you don't want to watch me talk to my friends who actually care about this school and want to help me then…you can find another room."

She hasn't been looking at you the entire time. She's been gesturing to air and staring at the ground but refusing to look at you. What did that mean, you wonder?

"Dream on creampuff, I'm not going anywhere," you say.

"Well neither am I."

"Fine with me, there's plenty of space. "

There isn't, and there won't be. And you give it two days before the Floor Don is screaming at you both for passive aggressive antics, refusals to eat dinner together, and who knows what else. You're not here to work with Laura and you're not here to help her. You're here to watch her and move her out of the way of whatever bullets she gets aimed at her.

Unfortunately for her that doesn't make you a hero. It probably makes you an asshole and that kind of makes you smile. Good old days all over again. Maybe you should leave some hair in that shower drain.

You begin this cold war by reading on the chaise longue while she does research on her computer, headphones in to convince herself, perhaps, that you don't exist anymore. You can hear perfectly what music she's playing though, soppy, emotional, and at least one instance of "Hallelujah".

For someone who didn't tell you she loved you, she certainly is taking this all very close to the chest.

It occurs to you the most pressing issue right now is that bed up in the room you spent every night so far in. Laf had said something about Laura tearfully walking into the kitchen before downright sobbing about how it was the first time in months she'd slept in a bed alone. You feel bad for that, but trying to work out some platonic, frenemy way of sharing a bed isn't going to work.

So instead that night, when you hear her beginning to yawn, you pretend to fall asleep with your book on the chaise lounge. Sprawled out, claiming it as your own, the conversation doesn't need to be had but the statement is clear: the bed is yours cupcake.

You feel her eyes on you after a few minutes and it lingers so long your skin might start burning. But then she's shuffling out of the room and you give it a few minutes before you decide you're going to pop up and go back to reading but she returns in seconds and hear her walk right up to you before something is placed overtop of you.

A blanket.

It came from the foot of that bed and now it's on you. Her gaze is on you some more and remembering you're supposed to be asleep is the only thing keeping you from squirming before she turns and leaves, this time not returning.

But she doesn't love you, she doesn't love you, she doesn't love you.

**Author's Note:**

> Ouchy. Don't worry, I'll soothe this all with Vindicated fluff soon :p Thanks for reading friends!
> 
> Song in title/intro: "Organs" by Of Monsters and Men


End file.
